Sex in the suburbs: The changing face of Australia's adult industry

Australia's adult industry is changing, finding a new generation of liberated customers and losing the 'dirty mac' clientele. But as brothels and sex shops become increasingly acceptable, they're also reinventing their business models to stay relevant in an age of ubiquitous online porn.

The flourishing adult retail sector in Australia is one of the more visible signs of Australians' changing attitude to overt sexuality.

It's going to go the way of Blockbuster and those sorts of shops that have disappeared. The model of shops has got to change.

Keith, adult shop owner

In Victoria a plethora of Sexyland stores have sprung up in the suburbs in the last decade, often situated side by side to hardware stores and pet food retailers. In Perth, it's legal for adult stores to have street frontage shared with other 'normal' retail stores. Female-focused erotic shops with names like Honey Birdette and Passionfruit are part of the suburban shopping mall experience in NSW.

Associate Professor Paul Maginn from the University of Western Australia has co-edited a new book, Suburban Sexscapes, that charts some of these changes. He says there's been an increase in the number of adult shops, but they've also become more visible.

'They've moved from the back streets into the main streets and into suburban shopping malls,' he tells Life Matters.

'There's also been a huge increase in the availability of pornography, particularly online. At the same time, commercial sex work has shifted from being street based to being primarily online as well.'

For example, Maginn says customers who would have visited brothels in the past may now be exploring their sexuality through websites instead.

'Increasingly the world of "camming" has become a big facet of how people experience commercialised forms of sex,' he says, referring to the practice of watching adult entertainers perform on webcams.

'They will perform and interact with their fans through the internet and provide sexual exhibitions.'

Many of these trends are on a global scale, although Maginn says the industry's fortunes are playing out in different ways across Australia, depending on local laws.

'If you are talking about sex work, you have a decriminalised model which exists in NSW, you have a legalised model which exists in Victoria and Queensland, and elsewhere sex work is in various status of illegality,' he says.

'But adult retailing is perfectly legal in terms of the type of products they sell ... In terms of selling adult toys and lingerie, they are all legal products, but in terms of the planning and land use within our cities there are differences and regional variations.'

New attitudes driving growth in physical stores, online retail

Adult stores started opening in Australia in the early '70s, and have become increasingly popular as attitudes to sex have changed.

'Here in Perth, there are more than 40 adult stores across the metropolitan region. In Sydney in the metropolitan region there are 60 to 70 adult shops,' Maginn says.

'The growth of the adult retailing sector has been quite profound in terms of physical stores. To me that's an indicator of increased acceptance.

'When it comes to the online space in Australia, I'm doing a bit of work at the moment looking at one particular online store and trying to map the geography of where their products are going in terms of postcodes.

'It's fair to say that their sales are in the millions of dollars per annum, and that their products are going to suburbs all over Australia.'

The changing face of sex shop clientele

Keith, a Brisbane man who owns an adult shop, tells Life Matters his typical customer is now a 35- to 40-year-old heterosexual couple.

'We're seeing a rapid decline in the pornography side of the industry ... DVDs and magazines. With the internet, the pornography that's found in these stores is insignificant now,' he says.

'It's going to go the way of Blockbuster and those sorts of shops that have disappeared. The model of shops has got to change and we are doing our bit.'

Not only is the internet changing the product mix in adult stores, it's also driving a process of normalisation, Maginn says, with more women visiting adult stores as customers.

'The acceptability of adult retailing has gone from the "dirty mac" brigade frequenting porn shops to couples, to LGBTI people, to women seeking to fulfil a "feminine need" in this space,' he says.

'Erotic boutiques' and Tupperware-style parties

There are three clear categories of sex shops in this new, more liberated era, according to Maginn. On one end of the spectrum are the older 'seedy and sleazy adult shops', which still exist, though usually 'off the beaten track'.

'In the middle you have corporate-style sex shops. Here in Australia we have a range of different stores with chains throughout cities, including stores like Club X,' he says.

'More recently we've seen the rise of "erotic boutiques", often owned by women and really geared towards female consumers. They wouldn't necessarily define themselves as a sex shop. Their emphasis is around sexuality, around lingerie, and high-end designer sex toys.'

He says the UK adult retail sector has led the way, particularly in catering to women.

'The Ann Summers stores are very much on the high street, and we're beginning to see a similar phenomenon in the Australian suburbs,' he says.

'These stores have an online store and a physical store, and they have adopted the Tupperware party model. Their representatives are ensconced in suburbia bringing adult products to the masses.'

Comments (2)

I Am Required To Agree :

21 Jun 2016 11:19:55pm

This story describes the current state of sex shops in another country called Australia - not this one.

Most customers are single men. Magazines and DVDs are still surprisingly abundant at many sex shops. Lingerie parties are something journalists THINK happen at everyone else's house. Sex shops are still regarded as a magnet for rapists and paedophiles who wear raincoats - in spite of the fact that a sex shop is the very last place you'll find anyone under 18, plus rape has nothing to do with girls eagerly showing themselves off in images. In fact, a long established sex shop in suburban Perth is about 100 metres away from a posh private school and AFAIK, no customers or students have died as a result of this horror.